After 8 years, things are looking up for Oiledkindled.
The city was founded in the year 1050. Its peak thus far was about 110 dwarves in the beginning of 1053. However, its army consisted of only a single, legendary axedwarf. During the first goblin attack, marksgoblins took point over my open air courtyard while another squad of melee goblins attacked the gates. The axedwarf fended off the melee squad; in the meantime, the marksgoblin peppered the courtyard with bolts, killing 3 dwarves and wounding several more. Luckily, the melee squad fled, and as they did so also did the marksgoblins. In the following year, I built a large wall surrounding the courtyard to keep such a disaster from occuring.
As they fled, a goblin thief made himself known. He killed a woodcutter in his initial attack, and I sent my axedwarf to intercept him as he ran to the gate. The axedwarf was severely wounded, but was taken to the hospital and recovered adequately to go back on duty before the next goblin incursion.
The next year, as the goblins came, they made it clear that my military would be insufficient. the axedwarf was quickly surrounded by macegoblins and slowly beaten to death. Before dieing, nearly every body part was mangled. The list of wounds stretched two and a half pages. Goblins then made their way into my fort before I managed to stop them by locking the door between my courtyard and the inner fort. The number of casualties sustained began an epic tantrum spiral.
The tantrum spiral lasted over a year, decimating the population: there were only 16 survivors, half of whom were children. They managed to survive relatively well after that and even had enough time left over to dig out a nice burial chamber and begin burrying the nearly 100 dead dwarves. During this period, the goblins launched their first seige. Without the aid of building destroyers, I merely locked the doors and kept my small number of dwarves safe.
Due to the goblin seige and other goblin raids, I was unable to go out and recover much of my dead soldier's full steel armor. Raccoons stole all but a single boot and gauntlet. I suspect they are up to something...
Among other various critter incursions due to an unsecured garbage chute (down from my near-surface fort to the magma seas at -60), there was a forgotten beast who managed to climb its way up. In a moment of poetic justice, my military dwarves attacked, sending it flying all the way back down the garbage chute and into a magma sea 30 layers below.
My numbers are now at 39, and the goblins sent another seige. This one had trolls and Giant Olm mounts. My traps took out most of the trolls, allowing me enough time to wall the front gate-tunnel to avoid a massive number of goblins getting in. A few more years and I shall have a wonderful lava trap built for them; but work is slow, since it requires a 55 z level pump stack; a stack which I have yet to figure out how I shall power.
8 years in now, and my courtyard's walls are lined with coffins of the dead in addition to my underground burial site. Even 4 years after the end of the tantrum spiral, I am still producing coffins for the dead dwarves.
Oh, and on a sidenote, the dwarves are housed in dumbbell tenement buildings underground.